Subject: Re: Salinger's working identity
From: Matthew Jones (columnatedruinsdomino@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 05 2001 - 11:18:03 GMT
Will,
This is a beautiful, insightful post I've just caught up with after my last
missive. I'm a little exhausted to write a proper response but I must tell
you that it meant a lot to me.
Best wishes
Matthew.
>From: Will Hochman <hochman@southernct.edu>
>Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
>To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
>Subject: Salinger's working identity
>Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 10:34:07 +0800
>
>Dear Matthew and Steve, your good responses kept me thinking even
>though I have to think offline today and finish some editing chores
>and writing chores...I think page 177 (paperback) of F&Z in Z has a
>nice little nugget.
>
>In my "reading blitz" during the past two days, I've been
>continuously struck by how often Salinger uses "text within text"
>rhetoric. Whether it's Allie's glove with poems on it, letters, or
>beaverboard quote posting, Salinger seems to have mastered the "text
>within text" way he divides himself and his words among his
>characters.
>
>Anyway, in Z, where Zooey enters the old apratment of Buddy and
>Seymour and reads their beaverboard postings, the longest one (on
>page 177) is from the Bhagavad Gita. It's all about "Work done with
>anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such
>anxiety." That may, in some way explain why Salinger choses not to
>publish, but it doesn't explain why he didn't disappear. He could
>have changed his name and lived quietly somewhere if he wanted to,
>and yet he couldn't quite leave his words and characters, could he?
>There's a paradox to the author and his identity that may not have
>logic so much as emotion.
>
>I disagree with Steve. I think he has a right to do what he wants.
>He put words on a page and we loved him for it, but that doesn't mean
>he has to love us back...and maybe he is, but in his own way.
>Perhaps Salinger's way of loving the reader is getting out of the
>way? There are a ton of hints in his work that indicate that he
>knows authors aren't the sole producers of the play of the text, and
>he may have done a less than perfect job as a recluse, but I think he
>has a right to his freedom. We may not like how he expresses his
>sense of liberty and freedom, but I don't think he owes anyone
>anything because he wrote and published some fiction. Don't get me
>wrong. There's plenty that's is odd and unexplainable in what we
>know of his doings, but if any of us were under the kind of scrutiny
>he's received, we would probably come off, in part, as odd or
>unexplainable.
>
>My guess is that Salinger is a true writer, a true artist,and as
>history shows, writers and artists often live quirky lives. I choose
>to focus on the life of Salinger on the pages he's published and I'm
>happy to report that after a solid couple of days reading, the life
>is as bright and generous as it ever was...I can read Salinger's
>prose over and over again and get new insights and feelings. What he
>does in New Hampshire or New Zealand is up to him and really quite
>secondary to me. I guess what I'm thinking is that the writer's real
>life is on the page and in the reader more than it ever was. This
>may be a more "natural" progression for dead authors. I'm out on a
>limb here, but I think Salinger wants to know his death and use it to
>get out of the reader's way...he may be awkwardly living in seclusion
>in New Hampshire, but the man I met on the pages I read recently had
>"all his stars out." When we get to text within text it can become a
>never ending spiral of words...how people fit in that spiral is the
>stuff literature is made of...and it's my belief that Salinger agrees
>with this idea and he wanted to get out of the way to make as much
>reading room as possible...just a guess, will
>
>will
>--
>Will Hochman
>Assistant Professor of English
>Southern Connecticut State University
>501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515
>203 392 5024
>
>http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html
>
>
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